Possible?

indywakechica · Addict Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 645 City: Indianapolis

Being one of these poor northern souls that is prepping for snow and all with wakeboarding feeling so far away just got to thinking. I've seen those little pools that push water so you can swim in it and I've been in wave pools got to wondering if you could setup an indoor pool to have a wake? Definitely not an engineer so don't know how it would work but seems possible. Seems like you could setup a pool with a motor (I guess just like a boat motor attached to the wall). Then if you had some type of buffer system on the sides and back you could control the rollers. Then if you had the rope attached to a pulley that senses when you jump and no longer putting pull on it, it could kick on and give you some pull while in the air. ?? I know I'd pay like $25 an hour for some water time in the winter. Just a thought and wondered what you all would think. Oh and if some rich engineer runs with this idea I'll be more than happy to take some kickback Smile

vette74 · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 1:32 pm Post subject:

The wake is not made by the motor, the wake is made by the motor pushing the boat which displaces water. Any thing is possible I just do not think it is economically fesible. You would have to get the water moving at 18-22 mph past a boat shape and have the rope tied off to a wall. To do this it would take a lot of power, over a million for pumps and electric motors alone not including the pool, recirculation pumps, building, ect.

I guess this is what you are talking about. Or are you talking about the man made wave at Schliterbahn in New Braunsfelds (sp)?

somepunk22 · Addict Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 898 City: Minnesota

I've thought about it before, except I was thinking more along the lines of the foam shape of a wave and the shoot the water at it creating a surfable wave with a special finless sandle binding board.(not a wave pool, but I don't know the name of it) I've seen video of tony hawk doing flips on it. I figure if they can do that, they could create a shape of a wake on the ground and shoot water over it. The problem would be the water would be to shallow to have a decent cut, but it could be done. Did that make any sence to anyone or just in my head?

indywakechica · Addict Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 645 City: Indianapolis

Yeah I guess that's true...the boat making the wake. I was just daydreaming in general...not talking about any particular wave or anything. Just throwing it out there.

ohsix · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 1:43 pm Post subject:

It could be possible.

The boat motor is not what makes your wake though. The water being forced around the hull and then coming back together is where your wake comes from. To do this you would need a stationary hull and force moving water around it to make your wake. The next problem is water supply. You would have to have a constant water source. This could happen if you hade a large circular pool to recycle the water after the rider. The problem here is getting the rider out of the water before he/she makes it back around to whatever is propelling the water. It's not easy to get out of water moving at 20 plus mph. The third problem is rope tension. You could hook the rope to a stationary point but when the rider is in the air there is no forward pull, like from a boat, on the rope. This would make it extremely hard to pull your feet back under you. To solve this you could either have a device that pulls the rope as the rider leaves the water or have a giant fan that put wind resistance on the water like behind a boat.

Good idea though.

somepunk22 · Addict Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 898 City: Minnesota

I dont think it would be possible to flow that much water around a boat hull. Does anyone else know the foam wave im talking about, and the shoot water over it?

Maestro · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 1:57 pm Post subject:

There was just something on the news the other night like that. It's a small indoor pool, probably about 12' x 6' (just a random guesstimate, was probably a bit bigger), that has a pump or something at one end to create a current. It's for people who like to swim laps, but don't want to go to a public pool. So you hop in, set it at the speed you want, and swim against the current. It got me thinking that you could hook up a rope to the wall and do stupid surface tricks and practise carving switch in it. Whether or not it's worth the 25,000 plus installation I don't know...

That's obviously different than what you're thinking of though. I assume you mean there would be an 'endless wake' type deal... I'm sure it's possible, but it will be a while before we something like that come out imo.

vette74 · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 2:07 pm Post subject:

Somepunk22

Is this what you are talking about? http://www.schlitterbahn.com/surf.htm

salmon_tacos · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 2:09 pm Post subject:

I think it would be possible but would have to be something on the scale of Schlitterbahn's Boogiebahn or larger (somepunk22: that's what you and vette74 are talking about).

Rather than creating a wake the way a traditional boat hull does, I think it would be more feasible to have underwater "kickers" to create a "wake". The tricky parts, I think would be:

1. The rope issue. I think indywakechica had the right idea. Maybe the system could sense movement between the wakes to reel it in while the rider crosses them.

2. The depth of the water. As you know, the Boogiebahn has VERY shallow water. This is fine for surfing/bodyboarding. I think you'd need significantly deeper water if you were going to be dropping from 10+ feet in the air. You'd also need to make sure that the underwater "wake kickers" were deep enough so you wouldn't kill yourself on them if you...say...cased the opposite "wake" with your head. Although...maybe they could use water pumps to create a water kicker. That would be cool.

Come to think of it: they could probably do something really cool with a "water kicker" at a cable park that would be just like hitting a wake. The main concern there would be messing up the water around it.

Oh, well. Nobody will ever be crazy enough to develop this thing. It's appeal is too limited, I think, compared to it's cost. Anyone can flop down on a bodyboard and slide through the Boogiebahn. I think this artificial wake machine would be wasted on the masses. I also think that average recreational beginner would have more fun being dragged around on a cable than trying to master this funny contraption.

vette74 · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 2:15 pm Post subject:

It would probably be cheaper to build a cable park and loan you free drysuits.

boarditup · Addict Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 731 City: Allendale, MI

I actually went throght the exercise of a feasability study on an indoor waterski arena. It would cost $32-35 million to build, about $2.5 million per year to maintain, and would generate less than $200k per year in revenue. Economically unfeasable without some new construction techniques and technology. For the short term, we are at the mercy of the weather.

somepunk22 · Addict Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 898 City: Minnesota

Thanks vette!
salmon_tacos, for the surf "flow riders" the person just falls back into a pool of right, correct? why couldn't it be the same with a handle. maybe someone at the front of the machine would have to pull the handle back in.

on the left of the pic is the artificial foam wave with water shooting over it. just make a foam wake shape and shoot water over it. maybe the wake could even be adjustable to suit the riders needs.

salmon_tacos · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 2:59 pm Post subject:

somepunk22,

At Schlitterbahn, it works like this:

1. The pumps shoot the water over the "wave".
2. On the other side of the wave, the water flows down into a "lazy river", a huge circular artificial river that just flows around at 5mph or so.
3. Grates in the bottom of the lazy river pick up the water and pump it back to the Boogiebahn where the process starts over.

The whole system is huge. There is no danger of anyone getting sucked into the water intake because the grates are large and dispersed throughout the river.

When people fall, they get washed down into the lazy river and have to get out and hike back over to the Boogiebahn.

The main problem with a wakeboarding-type application is that you'd be getting air. If you got air in the Boogiebahn, you could easily break your arm or neck. The water would do nothing to absorb your fall. They actually have the hump shaped so that if they flow enough water, the wave will curl. They don't ever do that though, except when they have pros doing exhibitions or whatever, because they know someone could easily get hurt.

somepunk22 · Addict Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 898 City: Minnesota

Make them sign waivers! Wink

Depending on the foam, I wouldn't think the fall would hurt to much more then snowboarding tho.

holdsworth · Posted: Dec 04, 2003 7:06 pm Post subject:

why not go there, strap on a wakeboard, and go out like you are surfing but once you feel comfortable, just cut into the wave and do a flip or something Laughing

sounds like fun to me....

or for the motor idea, just get something that would push a big block thing that is really really huge to go up and down in water to form a wave??? got the idea from the wave pool at 6 flags

hazza_35 · Criminal Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 87 City: kerang

i think you could get a big trainline typed thing to run underwater, and have a huge block connected to it, then shape the end of the block and run a pole that is 8 foot off the water, you could connect your rope to that, and run the thing at 20mph, then it would displace a wake from the big shaped block underneath the water, not a very good shped one but some fine tuning would help...anyone know what i mean? all u would need is a lake/river that is about 1km-1.5km long, and have a dock at one end and a dock at the other with a few tinnys going up and down to pick people up, the lake/river would only need to be bout 7foot deep, i dunno wether it'd work or not tho. just run sessions from one end to another...

anyone get my drift?

vette74 · Posted: Dec 05, 2003 6:46 am Post subject:

hazza 35
If you are going to run up and down a river/lake you could just get a boat it would be cheaper/ easier.

morva · Outlaw Joined: 25 Sep 2003 Posts: 168

The flowrider in Texas, you could do flips etc like wake boarding, however: you can`t dig a rail for s**t, the water`s too shallow. "jumping" would be just that, and pretty unlike hitting the wake in wakeboarding. Also, like salmon tacos said, they hardly ever increase the flow unless pros are there.
How about creating a 300-metre long "wake" in the snow, the same height/width as a real one, and being towed behind a snowmobile that was being driven in the middle of the wake. You would have the same speed, pulling and wake as a wakeboard session. Would just be a lot of work to set up. I don`t know, it don`t snow much where I`m from, but it sounds OK in theory. What do you think Question

andrew james · Addict Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 889 City: austin, tx

Man i spend so much of my summer at schlitterbahn with my brother drinking margaritas and picking up girls.. it's one of my favorite things to do, right up there with going out to the lake.

The idea sounds badass, but i dont know how possible it is.

Tyler T · Posted: Dec 05, 2003 12:01 pm Post subject:

there was a huge discussion about this a while back. It might have been on the old site. I can't remember anymore

fifeman · Outlaw Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 244

yeah i've thought about this while i was at a pool once. i was dreaming that it was like a cable park, but it had a wake in the middle of the pool, and you could cut back and forth and do your tricks. if it was something like schittlerbahn, it would just plain hurt if you fell

Sportster4Tec · Posted: Dec 05, 2003 4:43 pm Post subject:

You could position a hull right behind the water pump pushing water at about 20mph so that it would make a wake, and have like a 8ft pole on land. With the water rushing back against you even without actually being pulled forward it would be just like wakeboarding. Also you could adjust the wake exactly how you want it by lowering, raising and tilting the hull and changing the water speed.

salmon_tacos · Posted: Dec 05, 2003 5:01 pm Post subject:

Sportster4Tec,

The problem with that solution is that you'd need a pool 100 ft. wide by at least 10 feet deep. At 22 mph, that would mean you'd have to pump about 32000 cubic feet / sec., or about 240,000 gallons per second (864,000,000 gallons per hour, i.e. the capacity of about 720,000 fat sack pumps.

CenturionDad · Soul Rider Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 277 City: So Cal

That schlitterbomb really sucks when you fall! Basically it is concrete, with a few inches of foam rubber that's painted on the concrete. Then they shoot water at high pressure over the thing. Good luck on the landing, and the trip over the edge.

What about that river in Europe where there is a pipe just under the surface that throws the water up. Basically surfing on the river. I saw something on T.V. about it. Basically the water goes over the pipe, drops down and shoots backup in the shape of a wave. If you fall you drift down stream a little and hike back to take your turn.

BillJ · Posted: Dec 05, 2003 6:07 pm Post subject:

The company that makes the flowrider is WaveLoch in San Diego. They are in the processing of building a big new wave house right on Mission Beach:

http://www.waveloch.com/

J_DOGG · Posted: Dec 06, 2003 12:59 pm Post subject:

big money, big money!

I have though about an indor wake park for years.
I called some of the companies that make the pumps for the wave parks and it's $$$$$ dollars...

I like the river idea, and have been searching around here for the perfect place to try it.....low cost solution to the pumps.